YOU don't have to sit in the gods to join them at the Regent Centre next week, when South Wessex Opera Company present Offenbach's classic comic operetta, Orpheus In The Underworld.

This will be South Wessex Opera's premiere performance as a new company, created by the merger of South Coast Opera and Wessex Opera.

The Greek legend of Orpheus has attracted many composers over the years, but it is Offenbach's classic French operetta that has always been the most popular.

Its irreverent use of light-hearted music such as the can-can, and its hilarious satire on the politics of the day, have always endeared it to audiences. Moreover, Offenbach's sense of fun extended to using his operetta as a take on Gluck's much more serious opera on the same theme.

Orpheus is married to the beautiful Eurydice, but she hates his violin playing - so he hates her.

When she catches the eye of Pluto, it seems a solution to Orpheus' problem might be in sight. Then the fun really begins as Jupiter, King of the Gods, falls for Eurydice's charms as well.

As usual, the company has double cast many of the principal roles, which are played by Cherrill Ashford and Pauline Mansfield (Eurydice), Stephen Adams and Bruce Vyner (Orpheus), Carole Gariano (Juno), Rita Spicer and Zara Taken (Calliope), Andrew Dawson and Malcolm Cuthbert (Pluto), Philip Redgrave (Jupiter), Diane Worthy and Veronica Cross (Diana), Daphne Paton and Pauline Hall (Venus), Michelle Gibson and Roz Golbey (Cupid), Howard Gross and Brian Smee (Mars), Len Godfrey and Walter Kammerling (Styx), Mike Stephenson (Mercury), Trevor Smith (Bacchus), Vaughan Cockell (Icarus) and Jock Paton (Vulcan). Lavinia Earl directs..